The new head of Tunisia's national news agency TAP resigned on Monday following protests by journalists who said his appointment threatened editorial independence. Kamel Ben Younes's appointment by Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi was announced on April 5 but journalists at the agency made it clear from the start that he was not welcome. They held protests and sits-ins outside the headquarters of the news agency in Tunis, accusing Ben Younes of being close to the moderate Islamist Ennahdha party, the largest in parliament. The journalists also claim that Ben Younes supported moves to muzzle the media during the rule of autocratic president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who was ousted in the 2011 Arab Spring revolution. Before Ben Ali's ouster TAP was considered to be a mouthpiece of the government, but since the uprising it has strived to be independent. On April 13, Ben Younes entered the agency's headquarters accompanied by bailiffs, but he was prevented from accessing his office and left minutes later as journalists booed him. Mechichi accepted Ben Younes's resignation, a spokesman for the prime minister told AFP. The SNJT journalists syndicate and the union representing TAP journalists welcomed the resignation. It said that a strike planned for Thursday was cancelled and the sit-in around the agency's offices lifted. A joint statement also called for a review of the 1961 law under which TAP was created, with a view to bolstering the agency's independence, and demanded that future nominations be free of political influence. kl/cnp/hkb/dwo